EP52: Amy Hoy – “Why it’s not about you”

Amy Hoy is known for her unfiltered, straight-shooting opinions on building product businesses. Her and her husband Thomas Fuchs have built Freckle, an awesome time-tracking web app - and have become well known in the bootstrapping, design, and Ruby on Rails communities. Amy is also a passionate teacher: her and Alex Hillman run the excellent 30x500 bootcamp whose students include the likes of Brennan Dunn, Chris Hartjes, and Jaana Kulmala. Our topic was: finding an audience, discovering needs, and building products people want. Notable quotes "The core problem with so many businesses is that they’re based on what the business owner wants." "They’re fantasizing about being the hero: “I’m going to ride in on my white ‘software’ horse, and save these poor people." "As much as you can, you want to sell to people who will use your product. People who buy your product and don’t use it will never buy from you again." "Target people already in motion." "Selling to wannabes has the least amount of upside; people who already have a business are more likely to spend money.” "I would rather have no money, than know that the vast majority of people that gave me the money aren't achieving what they wanted to. If that's true, I don't want to be in that business." "Being in business forces you to become a better human being." Show notes Freckle Time Tracking 30x500 Amy's blog post on why Freckle became successful The legend of 30x500A note from Justin: A big thanks to Amy Hoy for being Amy: no bullshit, nothing held back. Just real, hard advice for product people. Cheers, Justin Jackson @mijustinPS: I'm writing a new book right now called Marketing for Developers. Click here to sign-up for updates (and get a sample PDF).

Amy Hoy is known for her unfiltered, straight-shooting opinions on building product businesses. Her and her husband Thomas Fuchs have built Freckle, an awesome time-tracking web app – and have become well known in the bootstrapping, design, and Ruby on Rails communities. Amy is also a passionate teacher: her and Alex Hillman run the excellent 30×500 bootcamp whose students include the likes of Brennan Dunn, Chris Hartjes, and Jaana Kulmala.

Our topic was: finding an audience, discovering needs, and building products people want.

Notable quotes

“The core problem with so many businesses is that they’re based on what the business owner wants.”

“They’re fantasizing about being the hero: “I’m going to ride in on my white ‘software’ horse, and save these poor people.”

“As much as you can, you want to sell to people who will use your product. People who buy your product and don’t use it will never buy from you again.”

“Target people already in motion.”

“Selling to wannabes has the least amount of upside; people who already have a business are more likely to spend money.”

“I would rather have no money, than know that the vast majority of people that gave me the money aren’t achieving what they wanted to. If that’s true, I don’t want to be in that business.”